submissions
| Led Zeppelin – Fool in the Rain Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I love songs with lyrics up to interpretation. I won't retread what others have said, but I very much think you could interpret the song either more literally or more figuratively. When I first heard the "I'm just a fool waiting on the wrong block" I couldn't help but smile.
By the way, I've always thought this would be a great song to dance lindy hop to. Granted, it's a little long and the beat isn't prefectly regular, but I always think in my head "triple-step" when I hear John Bonham play those hi-hat fills. And the samba break would just be insanely fast, if you were that good... |
submissions
| The Wallflowers – Bleeders Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This song has got one of my favorite lines of all time in it: "Sometimes it's hard to tell the wishing from the well / where you threw the penny and where it fell."
I suppose the song for me hinges on those lines. It's about making choices, about how who you want to be or what you want to do ends up not turning out how you thought it would. Sometimes the consequences of your choices hurt you. The chorus says you gotta be tough. You make mistakes, you get cut, you bleed. You can't let it get to you. You're only sad and lonely, and no one is impressed. This song is about hanging tough even through your mistakes and bad choices, patching yourself up, and still trying. |
submissions
| Los Lonely Boys – Heaven Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I usually get annoyed by "jam bands" like DMB or Phish, but I could listen to Los Lonely Boys all day. You can tell they're from Texas because I think they sound a little like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble. That guitar work is always interesting.
As to the song, I've heard it a ton, but it never gets old, partly because the musicianship and improvisation is first-class. I really don't care that much for Christian music with the exception of a few bands I really like. It's usually too poppy or saccharine for me with very drippy lyrics. For me, the best Christian bands are regular rock bands who happen to be composed of Christians.
This song is anything but drippy. I don't know whether it's the vocals or the real passion of the lead guitar (and you can tell that guitar is played with true passion, especially on live recordings. I recommend you get a copy of Los Lonely Boys Live at the Fillmore pronto), but it's real and raw. It really is a prayer. Who of us hasn't felt like that, where life sucks but we just keep on praying, and keep on living? It's a hopeful and uplifting song but in an entirely real and non-phony way. |
submissions
| Guided by Voices – Chicken Blows Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Fron what I get, this song is aboiut getting married or staying with someone in a long (read: lifelong) relationship. It's almost an ode to domesticity. You get married and have kids ("I suppose we could have a girl or a boy") and live that normal life. Somehow the beer seems to be symbolic of the domestic life, of drinking beer to take the edge off of life (although at UD they drink it to put the edge on).
The second verse (starting with "can you sink...") seems to be about how time wears couples down physically and emotionally: you seem to grow old, fat, and apathetic together. It reminds me so much of a line on the Foo Fighters' "Everlong": "Come down and waste away with me, down with me / slow, how you wanted it to be." But even this wasting away with time seems to carry some hope with it. There's something noble in this, something courageous about facing down time with your lover, as evidenced by "Have you flown? Our courage is only a taste." The last three lines sum it all up nicely: "And I'll get paid / if you'll get laid / it's our parade." Seems so much like your old 1950s picket-fence marraige.
This is such a beautiful song on Alien Lanes. I love the effects, especially the singing while blowing bubbles. This is a great slow dance song. Sometimes I wonder what impact some GV songs would have on people if they had the production values to go mainstream. |
submissions
| Franz Ferdinand – Jacqueline Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Yeah, I think it's about happiness; how you're expected to work yourself to death in today's society, and it doesn't work that way. You need downtime. You need to find a career you love and enjoy. Here, Jacqueline and Gregor are two people who are burned out. Ivor is Jaqueline's boss, I guess, who "wrecked" her by overworking her. And if he wrecked her, then she became like him - broken by her job. She reflects his own face in hers.
Gregor is a guy who's bitter about how his life and his job are terrible. He's alive, but he would die "for chips and freedom" - he would die to get out of the job and the life he's trapped in. |
submissions
| Eisley – Telescope Eyes Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Wow. I need to seriously think about getting their debut LP. I don't go for female rock vocalists that much, but wow. Sounds a little like Lindsay Buckingham. |
submissions
| Guided by Voices – A Good Flying Bird Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Just thought of this: "bird" used to be old slang for a girl, so a good flying bird - basically saying "you've been good to me". It's been a good relationship - the flying was good. |
submissions
| Guided by Voices – A Good Flying Bird Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Essentially, two people looking back on their relationship with all its twists and turns: sometimes they'd stumble but they stuck by each other. I get the impression of two college-age people or high-school sweethearts in the summer after graduation, looking back on their life together. Deciding that they turned out alright in the end ("We were not the worst we've ever been"). The last three lines pretty much sum it up: live life your way (very Thoreau). |
submissions
| The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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It's a pity that the Byrds had to cut the song short for the sake of a single - the hypnotic Rickenbacker jangle and the whole song would have been a trip. And you don't have to worry about bad ones. Bob Dylan just shattered the boundaries of lyricism with this song. No one knows what it actually means, it's just fragments dragged from across his mind. But it's just so beautiful... |
submissions
| Bush – Straight No Chaser Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Ok. If you've ever read the play, you know about Mary, who is addicted to morphine. She uses it to escape from the underlying problems in her family. She has rheumatic, disfigured hands that are of symbolic significance in the story (the "broken fingers") and she once wanted to be a nun ("allthe fallen down angels"). |
submissions
| Bush – Straight No Chaser Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Heh. I couldn't make much sense out of this song either, until we read a play in English class. It's called "A Long Day's Journey Into Night", by Eugene O'Neill, and it's considered the first true work of American dramatic literature. It's about a family of alcoholics and drug addicts, and how they use their addictions to run away from their problems, while their problems slowly destroy them. The song references the play to say that you have to deal with life and everything it throws at you head-on, or else you'll lose out in the end. More on this later... |
submissions
| Chuck Berry – No Particular Place To Go Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I think it's about a guy who tries to score with his girl but she thinks it over and backs off. Think about it:
what do you do when you have "No particular place to go"?
"I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile/my curiosity running wild" - the first verse tells us his intentions, especially this part.
The second verse is when he begins to make suggestions while they're "Cuddlin'more and drivin' slow", which suggests that things are steaming up. "She leaned and whispered in my ear" tells us that the girl was for it at first.
The clincher comes in verse 3: what happens when you park the car? And to "take a stroll" is much less innocent if you read into it. And the girl backs down from going all the way because he "couldn't unfasten her safety belt".
When I listen to the song, I listen to the tone and emphasis on the fourth verse - the joke's out and Chuck knows it, and he's really belting out the last verse about a very awkward ride home. |
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